GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
2 CHRONICLES 22:6b-9
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Now, Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to see Joram the son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was wounded. 7 But the downfall of Ahaziah came from God. It was when he went to visit Joram. After he arrived there, he went out with Jehoram to meet Jehu the son of Nimshi (the LORD had anointed him to cut off the house of Ahab).
The reader might be expected to know some of the more famous things that happened to the prophet Elijah. He confronted Ahab and Jezebel about their sins. He faced four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel to demonstrate that Baal is nothing at all, and that the LORD is truly the only God. He also fled from the rage of Ahab and Jezebel, because Jezebel vowed to kill him. He fled to Sinai, and while he was there in the same place where Moses had received the Ten Commandments six centuries before, God spoke to him and promised that Ahab’s line would end. God told him: “Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat to succeed you as prophet” (1 Kings 19:15-16).
This Jehu was one of Ahab’s military commanders. The anointing happened while the armies of Israel and Judah were fighting at Ramoth Gilead when the Arameans were trying to recapture it. Elijah’s successor Elisha commissioned a certain young prophet “from the company (or school) of the prophets” who was known to the Israelite officers (2 Kings 9:11) to find Jehu, anoint him king in private, and then run away. Jehu wasted no time. The kings of Israel and Judah went to consult with Jehu the commander, but they soon found out that he had just been anointed by the Lord’s prophet to be Jehu the King of Israel.
8 And when Jehu was carrying out judgment on the house of Ahab, he met the princes of Judah and the sons of Ahaziah’s brothers, who attended Ahaziah, and he slew them. 9 Then he searched for Ahaziah, and captured him (he had been hiding in Samaria). He was brought to Jehu, who put him to death. They buried him, for they said, “He is the grandson of Jehoshaphat, who sought the LORD with all his heart.” And no one in the house of Ahaziah was able to rule the kingdom.
This account is told more fully in 2 Kings 8, but the details mesh with the brief summary we have here. Joram of Israel had been injured, and he returned to Jezreel to recover. Jehu drove his chariot there and commanded every soldier he met to fall in behind him. When Joram realized the danger, he tried to flee, but Jehu himself shot him even as Joram cried out to warn Ahaziah. Joram died there; Jehu’s arrow had pierced his heart. Then Jehu made a thorough search in Samaria for Ahaziah, who was hiding. He had already killed the princes and officials of Judah who were Ahaziah’s attendants.
Ahaziah’s death is described with different details in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. Perhaps it isn’t vital that we sort out all of these things, but this seems to me to be what happened, following the two accounts:
1, Ahaziah was with Joram, in a nearby chariot, when Jehu shot and killed Joram (2 Kings 9:23).
2, Jehu stopped to give instructions about throwing Joram’s body onto the plot of ground that Ahab had stolen from Naboth (2 Kings 9:24-26), but Ahaziah took that moment to slip away through a garden shed (“Bath Haggan,” house of the garden, 2 Kings 9:27).
3, Ahaziah fled south, intending to cross the nearby Kishon river and the city of Ibleam, but on the Gur (ascent out of a mountain pass) Jehu’s men wounded him, and he turned north, doubling back, and got as far as Megiddo (about ten miles, and also on the south bank of the Kishon) before he was caught (2 Kings 9:37).
4, Jehu killed Ahaziah at Megiddo. The chase had led from Jezreel to Samaria to Ibleam and finally to Megiddo (2 Chronicles 22:9).
5, Ahaziah’s servants were allowed to take him back by chariot to Jerusalem to be buried with the descendants of King David (2 Kings 9:28; 2 Chronicles 22:9). Some think that the 2 Chronicles account indicates that they buried the king there at Megiddo, but 2 Kings 9 says that they buried him in Jerusalem, and there isn’t any reason to contradict or doubt this.
Since Ahaziah was the son of Athaliah and therefore the grandson of Ahaz and Jezebel, Jehu included him in his list of princes for execution, since he had been anointed to cut off “the whole house of Ahab, every last male in Israel, slave or free” (2 Kings 9:8).
The last detail of the text is that nobody in the house or family of Ahaziah was left who was able to rule. The house would suffer yet another setback, which we will read about next, but this time the danger would be from within.
This passage and many others in Chronicles raises questions about the Fifth Commandment and killing.
1, First, the Commandment is about murder (Hebrew ratsach) and not the killing of any living thing (qatal). God explains: “If a man strikes someone with an iron object so that he dies, he is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death” (Numbers 35:16).
2, God permits the killing of animals, birds, and fish for food and for their use for material such as hides, which we see done in the Scriptures by both God the Father and God the Son (Genesis 3:21; Luke 5:4-7).
3, In the Numbers passage (35:16), we also see God condoning and even ordering capital punishment for an offender. While God does not insist upon capital punishment today, a government is free to impose it if necessary.
4, In the same way, a government may apply its judgment on accidental death (Numbers 35:22-23), which may or may not be punished in the same way (Exodus 21:28-30).
5, The Lord also permits nations to defend their people, their neighbors, and their territory with war when necessary. And the men who fight in such wars are not guilty of violating God’s law, although their consciences may trouble them. In those cases, they should be comforted with the gospel, not with secular theories, and assured that not only are their sins forgiven, but that in obeying their country and defending it, they have not sinned at all.
6, This is also the case with others who defend the land, such as the police. But where police or armies use unnecessary force, they must be stopped. “A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense” (Proverbs 19:11).
The sins against the Fifth Commandment are clear and certain: murder, killing through carelessness, mercy killing, abortion, failing to warn someone of deadly danger, and plotting along with a murderer. And other forms of harm also violate the command: overeating, overdrinking, poisoning one’s body, losing control of one’s senses by the abuse of alcohol, drugs, or injected, swallowed, inhaled, or otherwise applies substances. But the cases numbered above are not so much to be thought of as exceptions to the Fifth Commandment as they are serious positive applications of the Fourth Commandment, since they stand alongside corporal punishment, fines, warnings, and other punishments imposed by the state or government on people to maintain order. But above all, God wants us to thank him for his goodness by treating his gift of body and life in ways that are pleasing to him. As Jesus says so simply: “Love one another” (John 13:34).
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – 2 Chronicles 22:6b-9